See-Saw

After walking around Manhattan last night, Bryson and I sat on the train trying to process what we had seen that night. We're stuck between getting out of the apt, and learning that getting out for the sake of getting out isn't enough.

02.18.2011

Lucas Molandes

Some days I want to put on a sad song and wistfully push nostalgia from my fingertips to the screen. But that feels false and unreliable for long term growth. I suppose this is all in pursuit of finding out who I really am. I wonder if we'll ever realize who we are meant to become. Maybe that character is meant to always a few steps ahead, and the best thing we can do is hope that the person we were yesterday can point us in the right direction. It's hard to move forward when you can never fully turn your back on anything, which also makes me wonder if our true direction is a circle, maybe an upward or downward spiraling of sorts, and once we've gone 180 degrees along the path, we can really appreciate where we were, and how far we have really come.

I rarely ever talk about the good things I have accomplished. I tend to focus on what could have been better, but I suppose that's because there's so much more fuel in what we could have done than in what we have accomplished. It's easier to use my fears for fuel than using the peace I could find in that which I've done as motivation to keep moving forward. Most of what I've done feels like a by-product of countless hours of worrying and striving for more. I was talking to Amber Bixby the other day and she pointed out several of the things I've done in the last few months that I always overlook or disregard as happenstance rather than the result of actual talent. And it wasn't until that moment that I realized I have never said, "Man, I am pretty good at what I do." And even that, that right there, sounds arrogant and conceited. But it's true. I think it's hard to take credit for the feeling of, "I'm a fuck up, but I've found the right way to be a fuck up." And so most of my credentials are a result of the good fortune I had in finding my calling.

And comedy may not even be my true calling, but it is along the path of my greatest growth. Where I'll be in a few months, or a few years, or even after writing this, is unknown.

Bryson and I went out for a walk around Manhattan last night, we peeked in on two shows. At the first show, Bowery Poetry, one of the guys I was a New Face with back in 2007 headlined the show. He did very well, but I couldn't get out of my own head enough to completely enjoy it. Lets say I'm here for several years, and at the end of that I'm still doing shows for the sake of blindly pursuing comedy at a level no higher than local recognition. If comedy doesn't provide me some type of peace at that point, then what kind of questions am I going to have to ask myself then? If I stay in Austin, I would have to ask the same questions. So the questions exist outside any location.

We walked from there to Kabin, on 2nd Ave and 5th St. The place was packed to the point where the room was uncomfortably warm from body heat. The comedian on stage was doing very well, but the spectacle of it all made me depressed, again.

I don't know what this feeling is, or where it comes from. It's an itch I’m trying to reach.

It's difficult to have a self-awareness that gives off nothing more than that gut feeling of something being wrong. It would be easy for me to say to myself, "Just enjoy the show, and have fun, and don't let comedy depress you." But is that the easy way out? Is that my "get out of existential jail card"? What if there is something I find fundamentally wrong with the idea of comedy, where the best thing you can hope to get out of it is to be in on a joke with a room full of people who are in on the joke as well. (I could say that the best things in comedy also relate to the ability to pursue yourself and your dream -- but that's really more about life than any performance. I'm a 31 year old human, and that's what I want to be on stage.)

This is just a microcosm of how life works in my brain. What if I think about things a little more and figure out where these unhappy feeling are coming from? Should I say fuck it, have fun? life is too short. If I keep digging, maybe I will only depress myself more than before, or maybe I will find some peace with a further examination of the situation. This is life man. I can't enjoy the things I like.

The first time I got a good laugh on stage here, I stopped my set and asked the girl what was wrong. She said, "that was funny." I said something like, "oh yeah, I forget that I'm up here to make you laugh. So far all the shows I've done have been met with silence, so you can see how your laughter can be a little distracting to me." In NY it seems almost easier to accept that you're going to be treated like a nobody than it is to have the lingering hope that maybe someone might take an interest in you. It'd difficult to live waiting for the phone to ring again. The first one is for free, the next time is gonna cost you.Of course, this is true of anywhere in that you can only use what you're given and expect no more than you're willing to work for. 

If comedy was my sole reason for being here in the city, that would be a gross misuse of my abilities as a human. I can be on stage 10 times in one week here, and I could rationalize marking my progress against comics who are not on stage that much in a week, but the reality is that comedy isn't everything, but It's definitely enough to fuck with my head on nights when I should be happy to be apart of the fabric of humanity that makes up this entire city. I don't know if it's the nature of me being a comedian, or just in my nature as a person, but I do tend to over think things to a point of stalemate. Most arguments come down to chicken or the egg scenarios.

Maybe that doesn't make sense, but at the core of any self-evaluation is a question of true motives. Once you begin to question your motives you begin to develop an understanding of your true nature ... but if I know my true nature, will that in fact compromise the true nature of my true nature, where then my motives become my true nature? Are these questions only valid when leaned against one another? Do I need to question my questioning so that I can provide myself a sense of purpose in all the unknown? Chicken or egg? 

Or am I creating fears at this point? When I was younger I would imagine boogeymen sneaking into my room at night. Why? Why did I allow my imagination to cause me to be afraid? It was so that I could learn to tell myself that my biggest problems are always inside my head. No matter how many times my parents turn the lights off and on, the real test has always been overcoming myself.

At the end of all of this, I don't really have any answers to the questions that come up. Every time I think I have a handle on something, several more issues pop up and take it's place. In life, there are no open mics or crowd responses I can use to gauge my growth as a human. But fuck, it would be nice to be silly from time to time. I wonder if my sad writing is a way to impress someone? Future me? Maybe sometime in the future, I can look back at this and realize just how silly I was.